Shapeshifter Подписаться

My depression is a shapeshifter, one day it is as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear, the next it’s the bear. On those days I play dead until the bear leaves me alone. I call the bad days the m dark days. “Try lighting candles,” they say, but when I see a candle I see the pain of the past, the flicker of a flame, sparks of a memory younger than noon, I am standing beside an open casket. It is the exact moment I learn every person I ever come to know will someday die. Besides, I’m not afraid of the dark, perhaps that’s part of the problem. They say, “I thought the problem was that you can’t get out of bed.” I can’t! Anxiety holds me hostage inside of my house, inside of my head. They say, “Where did anxiety come from?” Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town depression felt obligated to bring to the party, I am the party. “Why don’t you try going to actual parties, see your friends.” Sure, I make plans, I make plans but I don’t want to go. I make plans because I know I should want to go. I know sometimes I would have wanted to go, it’s just not that much fun having fun when you don’t want to have fun. You see insomnia sweeps me up in his arms and dips me in the kitchen and the small glow of the stove light brings me back to reality. Insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company. “Try counting sheep,” some say. But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake. So I go for walks but my stuttering knee caps clink like silver spoons held in by strong arms with loose wrists. They ring in my ear like clumsy wind chimes reminding me I am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness that I can not baptize myself in. “Happy is a decision,” most say. But my happy is a torn piece of fabric waiting to rip, my happy is a high fever that will break. They tell me that I am so good at making something out of nothing and then flat out asks me if I am afraid of dying. No! I am afraid of living. I am lonely, I think I learned when people started leaving, how to turn the anger and sadness into busy. So when I tell you i’ve been super busy lately I mean i've been falling asleep while watching the ceiling tiles laying in bed to avoid confronting the empty side of my bed but my depression always drags me back to my bed until my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city, my mouth a bone yard of broken teeth from biting down on themselves, the hollow auditorium of my chest swarms with echos of a heart beat but I am a careless tourist here, I will never truly know everywhere I have ever been. The scars you may see followed on the crest of my palm, were all made by me. I am fighting a battle that no one else can see, it isn’t against anyone else but rather the demons inside of me. It’s been going on for years now and I’m slowly losing this fight, no matter how late I stay up throughout the night. I can not compete with my restless mind, I try to numb the pain from the voices I left behind by cutting up my skin. It has become a habit that I can not seem to conquer. Anhedonia has this funny way of making everything I love doing seem pointless. As if it is no longer fun and doesn’t fill the void of emptiness anymore. It has this funny way of making me stop caring and wanting to do nothing anymore that I once found joy in doing. The pains that haunt my body are crawling back like they were missed. I know that I don’t need them yet their absence makes me sick. When my body is cleansed of toxins, I can’t remember how to live. I know that I must breathe, but my chest is pressed down flat by the hands of all my fears taking what they gave me back. You want to kill yourself?? It’s 2:00 am on a Tuesday night, you have school that next morning so you’ve already said goodnight to everyone. They think you’re sound asleep in your nice, warm bed. But the reality of it is, you're sitting at your desk crying your eyes out twirling a pencil in between your fingers, concentrating on what to write. Tears swiftly roll down your cheeks onto your blank lined paper. You know you can’t leave without your reasoning or an explanation. As you stare into the lines of the paper, the pattern of teardrops that have fallen onto your blank canvas. Head pounding, heart throbbing, with bright red eyes and makeup all down your face, you chuck your pencil and crumble the paper throwing it into the garbage. So frustrated and upset, you stand up looking at yourself in the mirror with ruined makeup and swollen red eyes. You run down stairs recklessly and grab a shit load of pills, swallowing handfuls at a time. You slowly walk back upstairs, sitting on your floor you begin balling, realizing what you had just done. You feel drowsy and pass out on your floor, waking up 3 hours later for school. Feeling sick to your stomach you stumble to the bathroom, laying on the floor leaning over the toilet in a bra and underwear. Trying to puke and not being able to. When all of the sudden the bathroom door swings open, it’s your mom asking what is going on. You proceed to tell her that you just don’t feel well and it must be something you ate. Little does she know, you actually hardly ever eat. Sitting on the bus falling asleep because you are so drowsy that you can’t hold your eyes open. Rapidly bouncing your leg and shaking out of control. All day long you keep your head down, hide your face and avoid people at all costs. Shaking so bad you can’t type or sit still, not being able to think straight or keep your eyes open, on the verge of needing to puke with a massive headache and stomach pains, thankfully no one notices. That’s of course until you accidentally skip a class. That’s where you really fucked up. Now it becomes publicly announced in school, getting asked questions about it. So of course you do what you normally do, you make excuses for it hoping people buy your pathetic white lies. And for what?? For yourself? No, for your parents not to find out, you don’t know what they will say or do, how they will possibly react so you do anything and everything to hide this side of you from them.. Some people wonder why, well maybe just maybe look at the bigger picture and see how everyone treats them first.. “She’s probably sleeping because she is lazy.” “You’re a fucking cow.” “Moron, complete and utter fucking moron.” “OMG CATHERINE YOU ARE SO FAT, Im kiddinggg im kiddinggg, kind of.” “GAIN SOME WEIGHT SKINNY BITCH.” “WRIST REVEAL?!?!.” “WRIST REVEAL?!?!.” “WRIST REVEAL?!?!.” “You are weird as fuck.” “Yo shut the fuck up horse girl.” “ANOREXIC MF.” “Homie burn to death HAHAHAHA.” “UR SO MAD SHUT THE FUCK UP HAHAH.” Just as a few examples. Next topic up is cutting.. I began cutting when something is going on in my life and I don’t know how to deal with it or talk about it. But no matter what you do you can’t take your mind off of it. Before you know it you are cutting yourself. You feel numb from everything going on around you and it wakes you up by allowing you to actually feel something. It is my way to cope with strong feelings, intense pressure, stress, anger, and self hatred. My urge to cut is triggered by anger, embarrassment, frustration, shame, low self esteem, and hurt feelings. I felt like I was to blame for every problem I ever had from getting yelled at, to being bullied, for people leaving, to how I felt. I used cutting as a way of punishing myself and when I did I felt like I was in control for once. Cutting provided me with a temporary feeling of relief. The problem was it never lasted. It became an impulsive behavior and seemed almost impossible to stop. Over time it became almost like an addiction to solve all of my problems. After I got done cutting I felt better, almost like a whole new person. But as soon as I felt upset or something went wrong again I would try it over and over and it seemed to work everytime. But the thing is I could go months without feeling this urge because I would bottle everything up until I exploded and shut down. It was my way of reminding myself that I was still me and I was still here, that I was still human and humans bleed. I never looked at it as a bad thing at first. It was just my way of coping and getting my mind off of anything I needed to without having to talk to anyone. Part of me knew it was a bad thing because I always seemed to hide it. But the other part of me just didn’t really care because it was my way to escape reality without anyone knowing there was something wrong. I actually liked how the cuts looked. I began to feel upset when they started to heal and fade. I know that sounds crazy but it somehow just makes sense to me. I liked them because they were something about me that only I knew and understood. They were the only thing that seemed to stay when no one else would. They felt like my only way of controlling myself and my emotions. It was my way out of talking to people. I hate talking to people because I go blank, I can’t think or let everything out even though I am screaming for help on the inside. It's like I'm begging for help but as soon as I get it, I have no voice, like I open my mouth to talk but nothing comes out.. No matter who it is I'm talking to. But when I write, everything comes out. It all makes sense and is a thorough and meaningful explanation of how I am really feeling. Nothing seems real right now, I have been this way for so long and no one ever knew, I never wanted anyone to know. And now all of the sudden it’s out.. Everyone knows.. From the school themself, to people at school, to my parents, to my parents friends, and now even cps… I can’t even begin to describe how mad I truly am at myself for letting it come to this.. I never asked for this, and I tried so long to feel better and pretend like it doesn’t exist. I spent so much time in denial with my feelings and emotions.. I tried to quit cutting so, so many times.. I’d go months cut free. I would try writing, drawing, cleaning, racing, and even sleeping to distract myself from these urges. But I only made it so far before the urges became unbearable to ignore and I broke down. Like a voice in my head begging me to just cut one time, just once and I would feel better.. And I guess that’s why I always ended up listening to the voice because it always did make me feel better, but only for so long...